Chesco man on trial for Upper Uwchlan police confrontation

WEST CHESTER — The trial of an Upper Uwchlan man who berated township police in a profanity laden diatribe and was later accused of threatening officers began Monday, and the judge presiding over the case limited the evidence his attorney could use to defend him.

“I would just like to stick to the immediate matter,” Chester County Judge Phyllis Streitel told attorneys for both sides in the case of Matthew Adam Walter. “It is not relevant to what we are doing, what may have happened in life up to this point. Let’s just deal with what happened in this incident.”

Streitel was referring to accusations made by Walter’s attorney, Joseph P. Green Jr., that the Upper Uwchlan police had engaged in a “pattern of harassment” against his client, and that the traffic stop that eventually led to his tirade and the charges against him was part of a series of events that drove Walter over the edge.

Green, of West Chester, had told Streitel he intended to cross examine township police about earlier occasions when Walter had been pulled over for no good reason, stemming from what Green characterized as a neighborhood dispute that Walter had with another family from the area that police had taken sides in.

Advertisement

Streitel also limited what the prosecution could do in terms of attacking Walter’s behavior by calling witnesses who could testify about the conflict between the two families, and how it had escalated into police intervention. Deputy District Attorney Carlos Barraza told the judge he wanted to be able to counter Green’s accusations about police misconduct with evidence about Walter’s combative behavior.

But the judge ordered both sides to stick to the specific events that brought Walter to court.

Around midnight on the night of June 21, 2013, Walter was pulled over by Upper Uwchlan officers in the parking lot of the Liberty Union Bar and Grill off Route 100 in the village of Eagle. Although he said an officer had initially told him he was being cited for speeding, he eventually was given a ticket for failing to use a turn signal when entering traffic.

According to police, Walter, a husky 37-year-old man with short hair and a beard, began shouting at the two officers who were out of their patrol cars during the stop. Using obscene and vulgar epithets, he cursed at the men for having pulled him over and taunted them when they got back in their cars and left the scene. His tirade then turned on an employee of the restaurant, who had been outside at the time, and continued when three others township officers returned to the parking lot.

Police contend that he issued threats to the officers when he saw them, saying he would “catch” them when they were off duty and that he knew where they lived.

The confrontation was captured on a video by a motorist who was in the parking lot, and it was later posted on Internet news, YouTube and law enforcement websites. Walter can be heard hurling expletives at the officers and the restaurant worker on the more than six-minute video. In one two-minute period, his voice was bleeped 22 times because of his profane comments.

In his opening statement Barraza told the jury of seven men and five women that he would play the video for them during the trial.

According to police, Walter was observed a short time later in his silver Ford F-150 pickup parked in the Upper Uwchlan Township Municipal Lot. Police said that when officers returned to the lot, the pickup was gone and Walter was seen a short time later walking away from the parking lot area. When he was stopped, he again became loud and belligerent and once again cursed at the officers, police said.

Police said a parking lot surveillance camera had recorded Walter taking pictures of officers’ vehicles.

Walter is charged with terroristic threats, a first-degree misdemeanor, harassment and disorderly conduct. He also faces summary charges of criminal mischief and criminal trespass, relating to the damaged car. Barraza said he dropped charges of institutional vandalism that had initially been filed.

In a pre-trial argument before the jury was chosen, Barraza asked Streitel to limit what matters Green could get into in his cross examination of police witnesses. He said the areas he believed Green would hone in on were irrelevant to the charges against Walter for the June 21 incident.

In his explanation, Green said that an antagonistic relationship between Walter and the township police had developed after Walter’s son became involved in what he said was a dispute with the child of another township family. He said police had been called to a volleyball game at Walter’s son’s school when the mother of the other child began taking photographs of the boy.

“There were hard feelings on all sides,” Green said.

Green said police had sided with the other family and had Walter and his son removed from the school, even though it was the boy’s school that the other family’s child did not attend.

Following that, Walter was stopped a total of four times by Upper Uwchlan police for traffic infractions. By the third time, Walter became angry at the “pattern of harassment” he saw from police. “It was not just because he got stopped by a cop for something he didn’t do,” Green told Streitel.

In losing his temper with police on June 21, Green suggested that Walter was acting out of frustration and should not be found guilty of the terroristic threats charge.

But Barraza said that if Green was permitted to introduce evidence about past interactions between Walter and township police, he should be allowed to put it into context by calling on witnesses that would flesh out Walter’s behavior.

He said that Walter’s son had been adjudicated delinquent by a Common Pleas judge for assaulting the other youth and that Walter had defied a court order to stay away from the family. He said he would call witnesses who said they saw him at sporting events where he was asked to leave by coaches who said he was acting improperly toward the other family.

But Streitel said that barring unforeseen circumstances, she intended to keep the evidence at trial to the events of June 21, not extending beyond.

“I don’t like to color outside the lines,” the judge told the two attorneys.